Some US diplomats told to leave Saudi Arabia amid Houthi attacks

Similar withdrawals from UAE, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain reported as concerns grow about restart of war on Iran after US midterm elections

The US state department has ordered some diplomats and the families of US government employees to leave Saudi Arabia as the gulf kingdom faces a barrage of near-daily attacks, with at least three people killed at an airport and oilfield.

Attacks on “civilian airports and other critical infrastructure” by the Iranian-supported Houthis in Yemen were highlighted as the reason for the drawdown. The state department spokesperson, Tommy Pigott, said: “The safety and security of department personnel and their families remain our highest priority.”

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UK to deploy fighter jets to protect Saudi Arabia from Houthi attacks

RAF Typhoon fighters to fly defensive missions over cities and infrastructure in extension of UK support for Riyadh

RAF Typhoon fighters are to be used in efforts to protect Saudi Arabia from attack by Yemen’s Houthis, flying protective missions over the country’s cities and critical infrastructure as western allies increase their intervention in the escalating conflict.

The operation – the most significant military mission signed off by Andy Burnham as prime minister – will involve RAF pilots attempting to shoot down Houthi missiles and drones, which attacked Saudi airports and oil facilities.

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Houthi attack kills 53 in biggest single loss of life since Yemen civil war reignited

More than 200 mostly young people said to be injured after ballistic missile attack on training camp for government forces

At least 53 people have been killed in a Houthi ballistic missile attack on a training camp for Yemeni government security forces, making it the largest single loss of life since the country’s civil war reignited in September.

The attack on al-Alam camp in the southern Shabwa province was said to have injured more than 200 others, mostly young recruits, and was described as a disaster by the country’s UN-recognised government. The injured were taken from the police and army training camp in the Jardan district to a hospital in the local capital, Ataq, where pleas for blood donations were made.

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People scour strait of Hormuz for spilt cargo after Iran attacks container ships

At least 15 vessels struck in waterway in past 10 days, with rumours that they were carrying valuable goods

People have been scouring the strait of Hormuz for spilt cargo after Iran attacked at least 15 container ships passing through the crucial waterway in the past 10 days.

Some ships have been hit by drones, others by mines. On Sunday, a ship was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade launched from a small boat 75 miles (120km) north-east of the Saudi port of Jubail.

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Flydubai captain describes blocking axe blows as co-pilot attacked him

Capt Smit Machchhar said he screamed for help as he reached to open the cockpit door on flight FZ1073

The captain of a flydubai flight who was attacked by a co-pilot who intended to crash the plane has described ⁠blocking axe blows to his head and screaming for help as he reached to open the cockpit door.

Capt Smit ⁠Machchhar has been hailed ⁠as a ​hero for his role in averting disaster on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv last month, helping to thwart what the UAE ⁠attorney general has said was an attempted suicide attack by the co-pilot who had intended to crash the plane into Ben Gurion airport.

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UAE agrees with Saudi Arabia to re-enter Yemen conflict amid Houthi gains

United Arab Emirates will reportedly resume payments to Yemeni forces as gains by Iran-backed Houthi fighters alarm Gulf state rulers

The United Arab Emirates has agreed to re-enter the Yemen conflict by resuming payments to some government forces fighting Iran-aligned Houthis in the south, according to sources in Yemen. In return, Saudi Arabia has agreed to provide air cover for the anti-Houthi force.

The new cooperation agreement is the first tangible sign that the deep rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia over Yemen’s future is starting to be healed – if only because the advance by Houthi forces across Yemen has alarmed all the rival Gulf state rulers.

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Saudi Arabia to execute man for being at protests and funerals when he was 15

Use of death penalty against people for crimes committed when they were children a ‘new low’, say rights groups

A young man faces imminent execution in Saudi Arabia for attending protests and funerals when he was aged 15 to 17, say human rights groups, in the latest example of the kingdom’s surging use of the death penalty for non-violent crimes.

Youssef al-Manasif was arrested in 2017 and accused of crimes including joining demonstrations for religious freedom by the Shia minority and attending funerals that the Saudi authorities deem to be protests. He was convicted and sentenced to death by the specialised criminal court, a secretive tribunal set up for terrorism-related cases.

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Future of western security is at stake in Yemen civil war, says country’s former PM

Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed says Iran-backed militia’s use of drones represents ‘new era of radical terrorism’

The future of western security is being fought out in the mountains and hills surrounding the south-western Yemeni city of Taiz, the country’s former prime minster has said.

Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed, now an adviser to Yemen’s president, said it would be catastrophic if the city fell to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, since control of the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait in the Red Sea and the road to Aden – the site of the UN-recognised government – would be lost.

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Houthi missiles strike Yemen presidential palace, killing five

Attack was the first on Aden’s Al-Maashiq palace ⁠in the latest fighting between ​the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi Arabia

Yemen’s Houthis fired missiles at the presidential palace complex in the southern city of Aden on Thursday, killing five people, the government said, as the Saudi-led coalition listed dozens of Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure in ⁠recent weeks.

The attack was the first on Aden’s Al-Maashiq palace ⁠in the current conflict between ​the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi Arabia. The palace is the seat of Yemen’s Saudi-backed and internationally recognised government.

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Saudi Arabia strikes oil depots in Yemen and says missiles launched toward location of Saudi Aramco HQ

Civilians warned to leave target area near Sana’a before attacks as conflict between Riyadh and Houthi forces escalates

Saudi Arabia has launched a series of strikes on a strategic oil depot on the outskirts of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, while later on Tuesday it said it had intercepted missiles launched toward Dharan, location of the headquarters of the huge national energy company Saudi Aramco.

The attacks on both sides were a fresh escalation of the conflict between Riyadh and the Iran-backed Houthi forces. Before its offensive on Tuesday, a Saudi spokesperson warned civilians to leave the target area, in an apparent attempt to strike fear into the local population before the biggest attack so far on Houthi energy infrastructure.

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Saudi Arabia further suspends flights after latest deadly Houthi attack on airport

Energy minister says ‘fear has no place in the Saudi lexicon’ as paramilitary group again breaches stretched defences

Saudi Arabia has been forced to suspend all flights to and from its main international airport in Riyadh until next Saturday after a further round of Houthi missile attacks caused more damage and left one person dead. Some airlines, including Gulf Air and Bahrain Air, had already said they were cancelling flights until next Saturday. More missiles were fired at Saudi Arabian cities by the Houthis on Monday, Saudi Arabian’s military spokesperson said.

The Gulf nation announced it was suspending flights from Riyadh, its second busiest airport, after Houthi missiles killed 13 people on Saturday and left more than 300 injured. Saudi state TV broadcast CCTV footage that showed passengers deluged in smoke and falling masonry as they queued at the airport terminal to board a plane just as the Houthi missile struck.

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Houthi attack on Riyadh airport forces swift rethink of Trump’s new strategy

US president’s plan to park the wars in Iran and Yemen, while blaming Ukraine for diesel prices, looks unsustainable

The reckless missile attack on King Khalid international airport in Riyadh on Saturday did not just export the death and misery inside Yemen to Saudi Arabia, it also left Donald Trump forced to reconsider his diplomatic and political strategy designed to take him into the midterm elections next month.

The US president’s plan had only been unveiled on Friday. He said it was the result of “a world problem” – spiralling diesel prices – which he blamed on Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s attacks on Russian oil refineries. He was going to keep the political temperature down on his war of choice in Iran and its spillover in Yemen until after the midterms.

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Twelve killed and hundreds injured in Houthi attack at Riyadh airport

Donald Trump evaluating whether US should join Saudi strikes against the Iran-backed Yemeni rebels

The latest attack on the international airport in Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh killed 12 people and injured more than 300 others, civil aviation authorities said early on Sunday, with some in a critical condition. A Saudi-led coalition blamed Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen.

A missile struck a King Khalid international airport complex housing terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights, a regional official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to speak to the media.

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Flydubai co-pilot planned suicide attack on Israeli airport, UAE prosecutors say

Hammam al-Hammami is believed to have been targeting the passenger terminal at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv

The co-pilot who tried to seize control of a passenger jet flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv last week was planning to launch a suicide attack targeting the passenger terminal at Israel’s international airport, prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates said on Friday.

Hammam al-Hammami attacked the plane’s Indian pilot with an emergency axe, but failed to prevent his badly injured colleague from opening the cockpit’s security door to allow passengers to overpower his assailant.

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Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream execution puts US in dubious company

Only Iran and Afghanistan routinely carry out sentences in public, with Saudi Arabia appearing to have ended practice

If the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, goes ahead with plans to livestream the execution of a soldier radicalised to extremist Islam who killed 13 people at a military base in Texas, his country will join a motley assembly of lesser powers and rogue actors who have conducted public executions in recent years.

Only two countries currently systematically carry out capital sentences in public: Iran and Afghanistan. In 2025, the Taliban authorities carried out six such killings and the regime in Tehran 11, according to Amnesty International.

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Three Saudis killed in Riyadh airport attack claimed by Houthis

Attack is deadliest in kingdom since it launched major military offensive with allies against Houthis in Yemen

Three Saudi citizens have been killed and several other people were wounded in attacks targeting Riyadh ⁠airport for which Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility, Saudi officials have said.

The attack late on Thursday was the deadliest in Saudi Arabia since the kingdom and allied forces in neighbouring Yemen launched a major military offensive last weekend against the Iran-backed Houthis.

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Houthi forces appear to make slow advance in south-west Yemen

Group’s fighters hit key airport in Aden with explosive moments before plane from Cairo was due to land

Houthi forces appeared to be making slow advances on Wednesday in south-west Yemen, approaching the city of Taiz and firing a missile and an explosive towards the airport in Aden, the chief international hub of the Saudi-backed government.

The explosive hit the key airport moments before a plane was due to land. The British ambassador to Yemen, Abda Sharif, said the attack could have endangered thousands of people. It forced the flight – from Cairo – to be diverted to Jeddah and led to a review about the safety of flights in Aden.

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Saudi-backed forces recapture key areas around strait from Houthis in Yemen

Government offensive launched under air cover by Saudi military coalition aims to retake all Houthi-held territory

Forces of the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen have recaptured several key areas around Bab al-Mandab strait from Iran-backed Houthi rebels, Yemeni officials said on Monday.

The officials said forces allied with the internationally recognized government have retaken the crucial town of Dhubab just north of the strait. They also captured the towns of Bab and Hadeid, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters. Witnesses said they saw government tanks and forces entering the towns.

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Air campaign against Houthis under way in Yemen, says Saudi-led coalition

Operation supported by 100 fighter jets said to have secured ‘air protection’ of Bab al-Mandab strait and destroyed hundreds of targets

Leaders of a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen claimed a broad air campaign involving 100 jet aircraft was under way on Monday against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels along the Red Sea coastline and farther north in the capital, Sana’a.

The Saudi coalition spokesperson, Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki, said the 100 fighter jets participating in Operation Dawn of Yemen were providing support to forces of Yemen’s internationally recognised government.

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Yemen’s Saudi-backed government launches military drive to retake all Houthi-held territory

The announcement came hours after Iranian-backed Houthis reportedly cut a vital supply route to besieged city of Taiz

Yemen’s Saudi-backed government has announced the start of a new military operation to retake all territory held by the Houthis, even as the militant group made fresh gains on the ground, reportedly encircling a government-held city.

Rashad al-Alimi, the head of Yemen’s presidential council, said in a statement on Sunday: “I announce today the start of military operations to retake the remaining territories of the republic and extend the authority of the state and its institutions across the entire national territory.”

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